A Bombshell of a Book: Gaussen’s Theopneustia and its Influence on Subsequent Evangelical Theology

Abstract

Louis Gaussen (1790-1863), Reformed pastor at Geneva, was a cultured upholder of Protestant orthodoxy in an age of decline and a supporter of the evangelical awakening in Geneva after the Napoleonic wars. From 1834, he taught in a shadow faculty of evangelical theology in the Swiss city. No work of Gaussen’s has had a wider influence than Theopneustia: The Bible Its Divine Origin and Entire Inspiration (Paris, 1840; Edinburgh and London 1841). This work was continuously in print for at least 130 years, with the latest American edition being issued in 1971. Yet this work rankled some reviewers from the start. Francophone reviewers questioned its theological method. Those in the United Kingdom resented his criticisms of three native evangelical theologians: Daniel Wilson, John Dick, and J. Pye Smith, who argued that only varying degrees of a plenary inspiration had been required to produce the Bible. Impatient with this (it seemed to him concessive view), Gaussen contended that inspiration had been uniformly oracular – i.e. prophetic in manner. USA reviews lionized the volume by judging it to represent historic orthodoxy. By the turn of the century, Gaussen and portions of his argument had entered the evangelical mainstream and Theopneustia had become the handbook of a rising Fundamentalist movement. But was it perhaps a Trojan horse? And has recent evangelical theology eliminated some questionable emphases it introduced?